memory and memorialization - university of victoria...3 impact of the great war. i then explain the...
TRANSCRIPT
Memory and Memorialization:
How War Memorials Shape Historical Narratives of Canada’s Role in
Military Conflict
by
Rebecca Powell
Supervised by
Dr. Penny Bryden
A graduating Essay Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements, in the
Honours Programme.
For the Degree of
Bachelor of Arts
In the
Department
Of
History
The University of Victoria
April 3, 2018
I
Table of Contents
TABLE OF FIGURES II
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF MEMORY AND MEMORIALIZATION 4
The Historiography of Memory in the Twentieth Century 7
Canada, Victoria, and Calgary after the War 10
Victoria’s Cenotaph 16
Calgary’s Cenotaph 19
CHAPTER 2: JUSTIFICATION, CONSOLATION, AND NATIONALISM IN THE
AFTERMATH OF THE GREAT WAR 25
Justification for the War 26
Consolation of Citizens 30
Contributions to Canadian Nationalism 39
CONCLUDING REMARKS: REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING 48
BIBLIOGRAPHY 51
II
Table of Figures
Figure 1. 1: The Victoria Cenotaph. 16
Figure 1. 2: The Victoria Cenotaph Front Plaque. 18
Figure 1. 3: The Victoria Cenotaph Rear Plaque. 43
Figure 2. 1: The Calgary Cenotaph. 19
Figure 2. 2: The Calgary Cenotaph Front Inscription. 21
Figure 2. 3: The Calgary Cenotaph Side Inscription. 22
Figure 2. 4: The Calgary Cenotaph Bench "Pass Not in Sorrow but with Pride". 23
Figure 2. 5: The Calgary Cenotaph Bench "May We Live as Nobly as They Died". 23
Figure 2. 6: The Calgary Cenotaph - Laurel Wreath. 44
Figure 1. 4: The Victoria Cenotaph – Laurel Wreath. 44
43
19
21
22
23
23
1
Introduction
War memorials exist in the town squares, church courtyards, and legislature lawns of
cities across Canada. They are prominent features of most Canadian towns, serving as sites for
grand ceremonies of public commemoration, such as Remembrance Day, as well as spaces for
the private reflection of those passing by.1 They commemorate battles won, the sacrifices of
brave men and women, and the history of a nation in arms. These war memorials are important
because they tell a story about the subjects and the event they are meant to be commemorating,
and, in that sense, memorials are important because the stories they tell continue to influence us
today.2 As a result, these memorials have become inherently irreversibly intertwined with our
conceptions of the past.3 In his book, Remembered in Bronze and Stone: Canada’s Great War
Memorial Statuary, Alan Livingstone MacLeod argues “War memorials are significant in direct
proportion to the extent that people still care about them and, more to the point, still care about
the fallen soldiers they are meant to honour.”4 This has led me to wonder about the influence
these memorials have on our understanding of military conflict, and indeed whether these
memorials convince us to continue to care and remember.
War memorials are reflective of the times in which they were built and thus enshrine the
collective memories and understandings of the people who built them. War memorials can serve
as excellent primary sources because they tell us about the values, practices, ideas, and attitudes
1 Robert Shipley, To Mark Our Place: A History of Canadian War Memorials (Toronto: NC Press Limited, 1987),
9. 2 Alan Livingstone MacLeod, Remembered in Bronze and Stone: Canada’s Great War Memorial Statuary (Heritage
House Publishing Ltd., 2016), 9. 3 Shipley, To Mark Our Place, 169. 4 Macleod, Remembered in Bronze and Stone, 179.
2
regarding war, bravery, and death that are prevalent in society at a particular time.5 Jonathan
Vance argues in his book, Death So Noble, that the reason a mythic narrative and collective
memory of Canada’s involvement in the First World War was embraced so widely was because
it fulfilled certain ‘needs’ of citizens: the need to provide justification, consolation, and
nationalism.6 According to Vance, the main purpose of this myth was “recalling the war as
having positive outcomes, making a usable past out of the war.”7 Therefore, to understand how
Canadian war memorials construct historical narratives about the First World War and the
messages these memorials convey, we must ask: what explanation do these memorials give for
Canada’s involvement in military conflict? How do these memorials provide consolation for
citizens? And finally, how did these memorials attempt to contribute to the nation-building
project at the time in which they were built, and how do they continue to contribute to Canadian
nationalism today?
This project seeks to understand how Canadian war memorials construct historical
narratives about Canada’s involvement in the First World War through providing a justification
for the war, consolation for citizens, and contributing to nationalism. I have focused on two war
memorials, the Calgary Cenotaph and the Victoria Cenotaph, both of which were built in the
1920s to honour the Canadians who served in the First World War. I have chosen to look at the
two memorials in order to examine the differences and similarities between how they were built,
the narratives they portray, and how they provide justification, consolation, and nationalism.
The first chapter traces the history of memorialization from ancient times to the First
World War, explaining how modern-day memorialization emerged out of the brutality and global
5 Colin McIntyre, Monuments of War: How to Read a War Memorial (London: Robert Hale, 1990), 10. 6 Jonathan F Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997),
9. 7 Vance, Death So Noble, 9.
3
impact of the Great War. I then explain the history of cenotaph memorials and their symbolism
in modern contexts. The chapter will also outline the historiography of memory which has
shifted the study of history to accept that historical narratives are inherently constructed and
value-laden. Finally, I will trace the history of Canada, Victoria and Calgary in the First World
War and the 1920s, as well as the process by which the cenotaphs were built, to show how these
cenotaphs are different and how they are similar.
The second chapter outlines how these particular cenotaphs construct certain historical
narratives of the war that are representative of the values of the time in which they were built and
the views of the people who built them, through providing a justification of the war, consolation
of citizens, and helping to construct Canadian nationalism. These cenotaphs justify the war by
establishing a narrative of a ‘just war,’ whereby it was a battle of good versus evil. The
memorials provide consolation for citizens by portraying the soldiers as sacrificing their lives to
save their fellow Canadians, by encouraging citizens to preserve the memory of the fallen
soldiers, and by allowing citizens to become directly involved in the planning and fundraising for
the memorials. Finally, these memorials contribute to nationalism by appealing to patriotism and
through constructing a narrative of the war as a nation-building experience for Canada.
The fact that these memorials enshrine these collective memories, serving as a permanent
reminder of the brave soldiers who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) and
entrenching these narratives in Canadian history, means that it is important to understand where
this myth comes from. It also must be understood that these memorials are useful to the study of
history not as objective sources that can fully explain the course of the First World War but,
rather, as illustrations of the narratives of the war that emerged in the 1920s and the people who
built them, the values they held and how they attempted to make sense of the Great War.
4
Chapter 1: The Historiography of Memory and Memorialization
Introduction
Memorialization can be traced throughout history, from the Ancient Greeks, to the shell-
shocked citizens of the First World War, to the war memorials and Remembrance Day
ceremonies of today. Tracing this history allows us to find trends and hidden meanings in
Canadian war memorials as well as identify the collective memories of the First World War that
are reflected in these memorials. It is also important to ground this study in the historiographical
trends of the 20th century, particularly the interplay between collective memory and public
history. Finally, tracing the history of both Calgary and Victoria, as well as the history of their
respective cenotaphs, allows us to better understand how their memorializations of the First
World War are different and how they are similar. The collective historical memory of the Great
War established in the postwar era is deeply entrenched in these cenotaphs and ultimately
influences how we conceive of the past.
Memory and Memorialization from the Ancient World to the Twentieth Century
The foundations of modern day memorialization practices and the use of cenotaphs as a
memorial to the missing dead can be traced back to ancient times. Memorialization began in the
ancient world, as is seen in the memorial practices following battle and the use of cenotaphs as
memorials. Before battle, warriors would each place a single stone in a pile before the battle
began and then retrieve a stone after the battle had ended.8 The stones that remained were left as
8 William Kidd and Brian Murdoch, eds., Memory and Memorials: The Commemorative Century (Aldershot, UK:
Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004), 4.
5
reminders of the fighters that did not survive.9 This practice of commemoration is also depicted
in the book of Joshua in the Old Testament when a pile of stones was made as “a memorial unto
the Children of Israel for ever [sic]” after the Israelites had finally reached the Promised Land.10
The concept of a cenotaph memorial is also rooted in ancient Greek and Roman burial practices.
Cenotaphs are first seen in Greek literature as early as the eighth century BCE, and the Greek
word for cenotaph, kenotapheion, means ‘empty tomb.’11 Cenotaphs existed in two forms: the
first was a tomb built in the homeland of a person whose body was lost; the second was a large
mound of earth that served as a permanent memorial to someone whose body was buried
elsewhere.12 According to Greek cultural and spiritual understandings surrounding death and
burial rites, cenotaphs were necessary to “trap” the soul of a person who died, particularly in a
violent or untimely manner, whose body was lost or unburied.13 Ancient Greeks believed that
the soul of an unburied person could gain magical powers that might be put to improper use, and
so the soul needed to be contained by a cenotaph.14 Cenotaphs were most widely used as shrines
for heroes and as mass burial sites of soldiers who died in battle. 15 In Rome, cenotaphs were
used as memorials for important figures and soldiers who died, and were particularly important
places for politicians and soldiers to give their respects to those who died to prove their loyalty to
Rome. 16 Early Christians also used them as commemoration sites for revered saints.17 They
were also seen in the Islamic world where they were large, ornately-decorated, box-like
9 Kidd and Murdoch, eds., Memory and Memorials, 4. 10 Shipley, To Mark Our Place, 104. 11 “Cenotaph,” The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture, ed. Gordon Campbell, 2007,
http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/view/10.1093/acref/9780195300826.001.0001/acref-
9780195300826-e-0229 (accessed 5 November 2017). 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Cenotaph,” The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture. 17 Ibid.
6
structures that were placed over top of grave sites, primarily to serve as a grave-marker.18 In the
modern world, a cenotaph is defined as a war memorial that honours fallen soldiers whose bodies
lie elsewhere and are not buried in their homeland, thereby serving as a symbolic tomb.19
Modern-day memorials and commemoration practices emerged out of the First World
War due to the global impact of the war, and the immense brutality which resulted in millions of
death, the repercussions of which were felt by all of Canadian society. William Kidd and Brian
Murdoch argue in their book, Memory and Memorials: The Commemorative Century (2004), that
out of the First World War emerged “the collective imperative to grieve and to remember – not
to forget – that marked the 20th century and remains familiar today.”20 This is because of the
unbelievable destruction of life and land which was a result of the mechanization of warfare and
developments in military technology which meant that the Great War incurred great losses of life
around the world.21 The fact that it was a total war meant that the entire Canadian society was
impacted by the war.22 Canadians at home dealt with rationing of food and fuel, as seen in the
infamous ‘meatless Mondays’ and blackouts, in addition to the constant fear for their loved ones
fighting in Europe.23
The majority of Canada’s war memorials were built in the 1920s and 1930s both at home
and overseas, including plaques, granite markers, memorial fountains, statues, memorial towers,
and cenotaphs, which were built by governments and private citizens alike.24 In the post-war era,
18 “Cenotaph,” The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, ed. Jonathan M. Bloom and Sheila S. Blair,
2009, http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/view/10.1093/acref/9780195309911.001.0001/acref-
9780195309911-e-214 (accessed 5 November 2017). 19 Cenotaph,” The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture. 20 Ibid. 21 Nigel C. Hunt, Memory, War and Trauma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 180. 22 Kidd and Murdoch, eds., Memory and Memorials, 4. 23 Alan Bowker, A Time Such as There Never Was Before: Canada After the Great War (Toronto: Dundurn Press,
2014), 22. 24 Shipley, To Mark Our Place, 9.
7
the Canadian government erected four national memorials across the country, as well as
numerous monuments.25 The importance of memorialization in the post-war period is also seen
in the creation of the Imperial War Graves Commission in 1918 and the Canadian War
Memorials Commission in 1920, which were jointly put in charge of the burial and
commemoration of fallen soldiers at home and abroad, and which oversaw the creation of eight
Canadian war memorials in Belgium and France in the 1920s and 1930s.26 Moreover, the
decision of the Imperial War Graves Commission in 1918 not to repatriate any of the bodies of
the men who died on the front brought cenotaphs to the forefront of Canadian memorial
practices.27 Since the bodies of Canadian soldiers would not be brought back to their homeland,
a cenotaph became an important memorial due to its symbolism as a tomb or grave site in
Canada for soldiers whose bodies remained in Europe. As a result, cenotaphs were erected in
major cities across Canada including Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Hamilton, and of course,
Calgary and Victoria.28 These cenotaphs contributed to modern-day commemorative practices
and, therefore, have shaped how we as a society remember the First World War.
The Historiography of Memory in the Twentieth Century
The history of memory that is popular today, and which inspired this research, is
entrenched in the historiographical trends seen throughout the last century. A new type of
historiography emerged in the early 20th century, particularly among French historians, and
25 Shipley, To Mark Our Place, 63. 26 Shipley, To Mark Our Place, 63; Vance, Death So Noble, 60. 27 Ibid. 28 Shipley, To Mark Our Place, 63.
8
gained increasing popularity in the 1970s and 1980s.29 The pioneers of this new approach were
part of the French Annales School of Historical Study who, borrowing from French sociologists
Maurice Halbwachs and Emile Durkheim, tried to create a “total history” with the recognition
that history is value-laden and interpretative, not simply an objective gathering of empirical
evidence.30 These “new historians” argued that history must be the story of the masses, not of
the elites.31 It transformed the discipline in shifting historical focus from the individual to the
collective, and from strictly “monocausal” political history to social history that required
multidimensional explanations and analysis.32
With this innovative historiography emerged a new understanding of the relationship
between history and memory. Collective memory is inherently a Durkheimian concept. He
believed that “there is a strong need within people to have rituals, a series of fixed behaviours
that are agreed by people in society and that represent, in terms of commemoration, a formal way
in which we remember something of the past.”33 Durkheim argued that these rituals and
memories created a sense of historical continuity which ultimately leads to a united and cohesive
society.34 Halbwachs further developed these theories of collective memory in the 1920s with
the idea that all memory is social – constructed and developed in a social environment which
ensures those memories and customs continue to exist well into the future.35 He also attempted
to differentiate between the concepts of public history and collective memory, whereby public
29 Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, eds., Constructing the Past: Essays in Historical Methodology (London:
Cambridge University Press, 1985), 1. 30 Alan Gordon, Making Public Pasts: The Contested Terrain of Montreal’s Public Memories, 1891-1930
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011), 4. 31 Gordon, Making Publics Past, 4. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Misztal, “Durkheim on Collective Memory,” Journal of Classical Sociology 3, no. 2 (2003): 123-124,
http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/doi/abs/10.1177/1468795X030032002. 35 Gordon, Making Publics Past, 4-5; Hunt, Memory, War and Trauma, 106.
9
history was a record of events continuously compiled and expanded in order to create an accurate
depiction of the past.36 Collective memory on the other hand was the creation of an “official”
collective past that is created through competing interests in the attempts to preserve a historical
narrative.37 Historian Pierre Nora also furthered this understanding of memory and history,
arguing that this shift in historiography actually emerged in the 19th century as history began to
use collective memories to create a unified past for all citizens that would ultimately forge a
common national consciousness.38 In this shift, there is little room for particular or personal
memory that deviates from the collective memory of the nation. The historical narrative created
as a result is inherently “myth-history” and, according to Nora, can be best studied through its
most significant manifestations: monuments and memorials.39
This understanding of “myth-history” is evident in the work of Vance, who states “It was
average Canadians who were responsible for the myth. The memory of the war was not simply a
creation of Anglo-Canadian intellectuals, political leaders, social elites, and renowned members
of the literati.”40 Vance argues that the collective memory which emerged out of the First World
War was created and perpetuated not by political elites, but rather by ordinary citizens looking to
find justification for the war, consolation for their losses, and meaning in the suffering they
endured.41 In order to understand the narrative of Canada in the First World War, it is important
to understand the memories of average Canadians that built this myth-history. Pierre Bourdieu, a
French sociologist, philosopher, and anthropologist argues that works of art, just like historical
36 Gordon, Making Publics Past, 5. 37 Ibid., 6. 38 Hunt, Memory, War and Trauma, 101. 39 Gordon, Making Publics Past, 7. 40 Vance, Death So Noble, 7. 41 Vance, Death So Noble, 7.
10
monuments, are products of their time.42 In order to fully comprehend the ideas and values these
cenotaphs symbolize, they cannot be separated from the people who built them or the time in
which they were built.43 This historical methodology contends that historical memory is a
constructed narrative embedded with normative values; therefore, in order to truly understand the
history of the First World War, we must first understand how that historical memory was created
and the normative values it represents.
Canada, Victoria, and Calgary After the War
To understand the preoccupations behind the building of these cenotaphs, and the
historical narratives they represent, it is important to look at the history of the First World War in
Canada, the role these cities played in the war effort, and the setting of the time when these
cenotaphs were built. The horrific conditions of trench-warfare, the immense destruction of land
and life as a result of increased mechanization of military technology, and the death of more than
66 000 Canadians on the front, with another 172 000 left wounded, shook society to its core.44
The reverberations of the war were felt by the entire Canadian society. The 600 000 men that
made up the Canadian Expeditionary Force was truly an army of citizen soldiers.45 While the
end of the war brought great relief, Canadians were left feeling exhausted and confused as they
tried to make sense of what they had just experienced.46 However, things would not get easier
just yet.
42 Gordon, Making Publics Past, 9-10. 43 Ibid., 10. 44 Bowker, A Time Such as There Never Was Before, 66; “10 Quick Facts on... The First World War,” Veterans
Affairs Canada, http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/information-for/educators/quick-facts/first-world-war
(accessed 14 February 2018). 45 Bowker, A Time Such as There Never Was Before, 66. 46 Ibid., 15.
11
The ‘age of optimism’ did not reach Canada until the mid-1920s, setting the stage for the
building of many Canadian war memorials. Immediately after the end of hostilities in 1918,
Canadians were faced with another series of hardships: the Influenza outbreak of 1918-1919
resulted in up to 50 000 Canadian deaths, veterans returned home suffering from shell-shock and
physical impairments, facing unemployment as a result of post-war inflation, and crashing wheat
prices plunged North America into economic recession.47 Moreover, labour strikes broke out
across the country, most prominently in British Columbia, Alberta and Cape Breton particularly
amongst coal workers.48 However, by 1925 the Canadian economy started to bounce back as a
result of an artificial boom in real estate and the stock market.49 This economic boom was
further driven by an expansion in new consumer industries such as entertainment and tourism.50
Canadians starting buying more houses, spending more money on consumer goods, and
borrowing money from banks to fund said spending.51 Along with this economic boom, the
1920s saw a rise in romanticist and escapist literature, with over 750 Canadian novels published
from 1920 to 1940, the majority of which were historical romances, crime or adventure books.52
Many Canadians, particularly veterans, continued to write novels, paint pictures, and compose
poems depicting the experiences of Canadians on the front, many in this romanticist style.53 It
was against this background of shock and horror after the Great War, the exhaustion of the
immediate post-war years, and the optimism of the late 1920s that Canadian war memorials and
commemorative practices began to emerge.
47 John Herd Thompson, Forging the Prairie West: The Illustrated History of Canada (Toronto: Oxford University
Press, 1998), 113; Peter Grant, Victoria: A History in Photographs ((Vancouver: Altitude Publishing, 1995), 35. 48 Bumsted, The Peoples of Canada (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2014), 226. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid., 232. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid., 267. 53 Bumsted, The Peoples of Canada, 271.
12
Victoria began as a British colony and eventually emerged as a small bustling city
founded on the British values of its initial colonial population. In 1843 the City of Victoria was
founded by the Hudson’s Bay Company as a trading post and fort.54 By 1852, the population
was approximately 230 men, women and children, whose lives primarily centred on the fur trade
and the business of the Hudson’s Bay Company.55 However, miners and adventurers soon began
to flock to Victoria once gold was discovered in mainland BC in 1858, making the small
community into a major commercial centre and growing to a population of 700.56 The
population at the time was described by passing coal miners as being primarily Scottish, creating
a community of closely-knit neighbours who shared similar British habits and values.57 By the
turn of the century, Victoria’s population continued to grow, reaching approximately 21 000 in
1901, and kept growing until reaching a population of approximately 39 000 by 1921, with 32
000 descending from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.58 Victoria’s British ancestry and
foundation as a primarily British society continued on through the war and into the 1920s.
The city contributed greatly to the First World War, reflecting a general support for the
war effort amongst its population, and it recovered better from the aftermath of the war than the
rest of Canada. British Columbia had the most enlistment of soldiers per capita of any other
province with 55 570 BC residents serving in the CEF, over 6 000 of whom died in the war.59 In
terms of Victoria itself, 6 235 Victorians served in the CEF, and thus Victoria had the 5th highest
54 Royal BC Museum, “Fort Victoria (1843-1862)”. Victoria, BC, 10 February 2018. 55 Grant, Victoria, 6. 56 Royal BC Museum. “Fort Victoria (1843-1862).” 57 Ibid. 58 Sixth Census of Canada, 1921: Volume I – Population (Ottawa: F. A. Acland Printer to the King’s Most
Excellent Majesty, 1924), 381, http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/statcan/CS98-1921-1-1924.pdf. 59 “Legislative Assembly Outdoor Walking Tour,” The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, March 2017,
https://www.leg.bc.ca/content-peo/Learning-Resources/Legislative-Assembly-Outdoor-Walking-Tour-English.pdf.
13
enlistment rate among Canadian cities.60 British Columbia also contributed materially to the war
effort including lumber, tinned fish, submarines, equipment and other raw material.61 After the
end of hostilities, Victoria suffered alongside the rest of Canada with the post-war recession,
influenza outbreaks, and unemployment. However, the Victorian economy began to experience
a major boom. As a result of the growing popularity of the automobile, car ferries began making
regular trips to Vancouver Island, turning Victoria into a major Canadian tourist destination.62
As well, BC began to benefit from new trade routes by the early 1920s after the opening of the
Panama Canal in 1914.63 As a result of this increased prosperity, Victoria and the rest of the
province entered into this ‘age of optimism’ earlier than the rest of Canada.
In contrast, Calgary began as a primarily rural community centred on ranching and cattle,
but soon became a thriving cosmopolitan city with a booming economy. The area today known
as Calgary was land traditionally favoured by the Black Foot People.64 European settlers had
settled in the area in the late 18th century as the fur trade continuously moved westward and as
American bison hunters began to move in, in the late 1860s.65 Fort Calgary was eventually
established by the Northwest Mounted Police in September 1875 to combat the illegal activities
of the whiskey traders in the area.66 By 1885, Calgary was a burgeoning railway town, which
finally became a city in 1894.67 The economic activity in Calgary in the late 19th and early 20th
60 “Enlistments/Attestations by City,” Canadian Great War Project,
http://www.canadiangreatwarproject.com/Stats/Attestations.asp (accessed 20 February 2018). 61 “The Legislative Assembly Remembers the First World War: 1914-1918,” The Legislative Assembly, Province of
British Columbia, 2017, https://www.leg.bc.ca/content-peo/Learning-Resources/BC-Legislative-Assembly-Vimy-
Ridge-Display-Panels-1-2-English.pdf, (accessed 10 January 2018). 62 Royal BC Museum, “Hope and Disappointment,” Victoria, BC, 10 February 2018. 63 Ibid. 64 A.W. Rasporich and Henry Klassen, eds., Frontier Calgary: Town, City, and Region 1875-1914 (Calgary:
University of Calgary, 1975), 6. 65 Rasporich and Klassen, Frontier Calgary, 7. 66 Ibid. 67 Mark and Janice Kozub, A Calgary Album: Glimpses of the Way We Were (Toronto: Hounslow Book, 2001), 34;
Rasporich and Klassen, Frontier Calgary, 124.
14
centuries largely surrounded the cattle and ranching industry, as well as the city’s position as a
major Albertan transportation centre.68 Calgary began to boom with the introduction of cash
crop farming in the early 19th century, increasing its population 1000% between 1901 and 1911
from 8000 citizens to over 40 000.69 The Calgary economy continued to expand with the
discovery of oil, first at Turner Valley in 1914, then again in 1924 and 1936.70 Alberta’s first oil
refinery was built in Calgary in 1923, establishing the city’s pre-eminence in the oil industry and
transforming the city into a cosmopolitan and prosperous city-centre.71 Over the course of half a
century, the small prairie town transformed into the “commercial metropolis of Western
Canada,” transforming it into a cosmopolitan city.72
It is generally thought, particularly amongst Calgarians themselves, that Calgary made
the greatest contribution in all of Canada to the war effort, even though Alberta was hit the
hardest by the post-war recession. Ten thousand, five hundred and sixty-nine Calgarians served
in the war, making it the city with the highest enlistment levels in the country.73 The Western
Prairies were also seen as the “bulwark of Canada’s war effort,” providing disproportionately
high numbers of soldiers, as well as wheat and horses.74 In the immediate years following the
end of the war, however, Albertans were suffering. The collapse of the international wheat
market in 1921 and droughts across the Prairies proved that the 1920s would not be as
prosperous for many Calgarians, particularly those living in rural areas.75 As the drought and
wheat market progressively worsened, credit began to dry up by 1925, and the economic effects
68 Rasporich and Klassen, Frontier Calgary, 16, 124. 69 Ibid., 124 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid., 16. 73 “Enlistments/Attestations by City,” Canadian Great War Project. 74 Thompson, Forging the Prairie West, 113. 75 Thompson, Forging the Prairie West, 113.
15
spilled over into many Albertan towns.76 While most of Canada began to recover by the mid-
1920s, the drought worsened and wheat prices continued to drop so most of Alberta never
completely experienced the economic boom of the 1920s.77 In spite of these issues, the
population of Calgary continued to grow. The 1921 census puts the population of Calgary at
approximately 83 000, a fair bit larger than Victoria.78 And the vast majority of these citizens
were of British descent, ensuring that Calgary was dominated by British citizens, British
attitudes, and British values.79 It was in this context of support for the war effort, to post-war
economic recession, and continuous population growth, that the Calgary Cenotaph was built
between 1927 and 1928.
76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 Sixth Census of Canada, 1921, 201. 79 Sixth Census of Canada, 1921, 201; Donald B. Smith, Calgary’s Grand Story: The Making of a Prairie
Metropolis from the Viewpoint of Two Heritage Buildings (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005), 16.
16
Victoria’s Cenotaph:
The Cenotaph in Victoria was a citizens’ memorial, built with funds raised by Victorians
themselves to honour the men and women from their city who gave their lives on the European
front during the Great War. It sits on the lawn outside of the BC Legislature buildings in
downtown Victoria, along the inner harbour of the city. It was unveiled on 12 July 1925.80 The
80 British Columbia Archives (hereafter BCA), Associations, community service, charities, Pemberton Holmes Ltd.,
MS-3001, Box 48, File 13, Archivers’ notes. 80 Calgary Corporate Records Archive (hereafter CCRA), City Clerk’s Office Fonds, Admin History Bio.
Figure 1. 1: The Victoria Cenotaph, Rebecca Powell, February 2018.
17
plans and fundraising were carried by the War Memorial Committee, a citizens’ organization
created by F. B. Pemberton who served as Treasurer of the Committee and was a prominent
Victorian realtor and founder of the real-estate company that is today known as Pemberton
Holmes.81 In total, the War Memorial Committee was able to raise almost $13 000 in three
months between October and December in 1924.82
The Cenotaph was designed and built by the famed English sculptor Sydney March, with
help from his brother Vernon, who was known for the multiple memorials he had built across
Europe and Canada, and who eventually went on to build the National War Memorial in
Ottawa.83 Sydney and Vernon designed and built the bronze figure of the soldier, the two bronze
wreaths, and the memorial plaque in their home of Farnborough, England, then shipped them to
Victoria by boat. The base was made locally by John Mortimer & Son out of Nelson Island
Granite, which is the same stone as used in the Legislature Building, and cost approximately
$6 000.84 The Cenotaph in total cost Victorians around $12 000.85 The Cenotaph has a bronze
statue of a soldier, rifle in hand and ready for battle which was meant to symbolize the “unknown
soldier”.86 There are two bronze wreaths, and a bronze memorial plaque which reads.
TO OUR
GLORIOUS
DEAD
1914-1919
1939-1945
81 Victoria Municipal Archive (hereafter VMA), Monuments- Cenotaphs File, Islander Newspaper Article titled
“Thank Pemberton for Cenotaph”, 11 February 1990. 82 BCA, Associations, community service, charities, Pemberton Holmes Ltd., MS-3001, Box 48, File 13, ledger
book, September to December 1924. 83 VMA, Monuments- Cenotaphs File, Islander Newspaper Article titled “Thank Pemberton for Cenotaph”, 11
February 1990. 84 “Legislative Assembly Outdoor Walking Tour.” The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. 85 BCA, Associations, community service, charities, Pemberton Holmes Ltd., MS-3001, Box 48, File 13, Archivers’
notes. 86 “Canada on Guard,” Daily Colonist; “Legislative Assembly Outdoor Walking Tour.” The Legislative Assembly
of British Columbia.
18
‘THEY DIED THE NOBLEST DEATH A MAN MAY DIE, FIGHTING FOR GOD, AND
RIGHT AND LIBERTY, AND SUCH A DEATH IS IMMORTALITY’
The original memorial plaque was updated to include the Second World War, and there are two
further plaques underneath reading “KOREA 1950-1953” and “AFGHANISTAN 2001-2014”
that were added in recent years.87
As well, inside the Cenotaph is a scroll with the names of the builders, plus coins, public records,
and newspapers,88 allowing it to serve as time capsule. The Cenotaph is still included in
memorialization practices today, serving as a centrepiece for Victoria’s Remembrance Day
ceremony.
87 “Legislative Assembly Outdoor Walking Tour.” The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. 88 BCA, Associations, community service, charities, Pemberton Holmes Ltd., MS-3001, Box 48, File 13, Archivers’
notes.
Figure 1. 2: The Victoria Cenotaph Front Plaque, Rebecca Powell, January 2018.
19
Calgary’s Cenotaph:
The Cenotaph in Calgary was built through the work of Calgary’s municipal council
which ordered its creation, and Calgarians of all walks of life who helped with the fundraising
and the plans for building. The Cenotaph was unveiled on 11 November 1928 in Central
Memorial Park, in downtown Calgary, which at the time was known simply as “Central Park.”89
It was also erected through the public subscription of the citizens of Calgary themselves. The
Calgary Cenotaph Committee, which was responsible for the fundraising, planning and design of
the memorial, was a citizens’ committee created by the city council in December 1927 and
89 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, Admin History Bio.
Figure 2. 1: The Calgary Cenotaph, Rebecca Powell, September 2017.
20
chaired by Calgary Mayor Frederick Ernst Osbourne.90 The fundraising and building of the
Cenotaph was a much more bureaucratic process than was the case with the Cenotaph in
Victoria, as most of the correspondence and organizing was done through the mayor’s office.
The Calgary Cenotaph Committee raised $17 359 from 1927 to 1928, well above the proposed
budget of $15 000.91 Clearly the Cenotaph received the support of many Calgarians. It was also
clearly a citizens’ memorial in the way the designer was chosen: Calgary held a nation-wide
competition, open to any British subject, and offered cash prizes.92 Each submission needed to
include a proposal, along with a small model of their design, for a memorial that would cost no
more than $15 000.93 The winner was to be chosen by the Cenotaph Committee and a prominent
architecture professor from the University of Alberta.94 The first place winner was A. H. Eadie,
an architect from Toronto, who won $250 and the chance to have his memorial enshrined in
stone.95 The Calgary Cenotaph is a large rectangular column made of stone, with inscriptions
and various scrolls, wreaths, and crown carvings. The inscription reads:
THOSE
WHO
DIED
1914-1918
90 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1189, Written Correspondence of the Calgary
Cenotaph Committee, 16 October 1927. 91 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1189, Written Correspondence of the Calgary
Cenotaph Committee from the Chairman, 5 March 1928; CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175,
Folder 1300, Letter from J. H. Woods, Chairman of the Calgary Cenotaph Committee, to J. M. Miller, 17 March
1928. 92 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1300, Typed Announcement of War Memorial
Competition by John H. Miller, 1927. 93 Ibid. 94 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1300, Letter from Arthur H. Eadie to Mr. John
M. Miller, Secretary, City War Memorial Committee, 4 October 1927. 95 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1300, Typed Announcement of War Memorial
Competition by John H. Miller, 1927.
21
Below is another recently added inscription that reads “AND 1939-1945” as well as a small brass
plaque that reads “KOREA 1950-1953” which was added several years after its creation.
On one side of the Cenotaph is another inscription that reads:
THEY
SHALL NOT
DIE WHILE
MEMORY
FULFILLS
ITS TASK OF
GRATITUDE
THIS MEMORIAL
ERECTED IN 1928
BY THE CITIZENS
OF CALGARY AND
DISTRICT
Figure 2. 2: The Calgary Cenotaph Front Inscription, Rebecca Powell, September 2017.
22
Flanking the Cenotaph are two stone memorial benches with inscriptions that read “PASS NOT
IN SORROW BUT WITH PRIDE” and “MAY WE LIVE AS NOBLY AS THEY DIED”.
Figure 2. 3: The Calgary Cenotaph Side Inscription, Rebecca Powell, September 2017.
23
The Calgary Cenotaph is also the site of Calgary’s Remembrance Day ceremony and it plays a
large role in the entrenchment of historical narratives surrounding Canada’s involvement in the
First World War.
Figure 2. 4: The Calgary Cenotaph Bench "Pass Not in Sorrow but with Pride", Rebecca Powell,
September 2017.
Figure 2. 5: The Calgary Cenotaph Bench "May We Live as Nobly as They Died", Rebecca Powell,
September 2017.
24
Conclusion
The emergence of cenotaphs and memorial practices in the Ancient world helps us to
contextualize the representation and meaning of Calgary and Victoria’s Cenotaphs as symbolic
tombs for the Canadian soldiers who fought and died in Europe and whose bodies were never
returned home. As well, the modern origins of memorialization practices after the First World
War shows how greatly the war affected Canadian citizens, creating a collective need to honour
and remember the sacrifices of those who died. For the first time in their national history,
Canadian citizens played a direct role in the memorialization of their fallen soldiers, and these
memorials continue to serve as focal points for Remembrance Day ceremonies. Tracing the
historiographical trends of memory shows the interplay between collective memory and public
histories. It is important to understand the memory of war in order to understand the context in
which these memorials were built, and the historical narratives they enshrine. Finally, the
history of Calgary and Victoria as cities, and how they established their places in the world of the
1920s, allows us to further investigate how their cenotaphs and memorial practices differ, how
they are similar, and how they are reflective of the times in which they were built.
25
Chapter 2: Justification, Consolation, and Nationalism in the Aftermath of the Great War
Introduction
Memorials served to fulfill the needs of citizens after the collective trauma of the First
World War. In particular they provided an explanation or justification of the war, they consoled
bereaved and shocked citizens, and they contributed to a burgeoning Canadian nationalism. As a
result, these cenotaphs constructed a particular historical narrative of the First World War, one
that is reflective of the popular attitudes and understandings of the time in which they were built.
In providing justification for the war, the Calgary and Victoria Cenotaphs convey the idea that
the Great War was a “just war” fought in the name of Western values, against an oppressive and
evil enemy. To provide consolation for citizens, the Cenotaphs use religious symbolism to show
that the soldiers earned everlasting life in suffering and sacrificing their lives just as Jesus had.
They also use the language of remembrance which encourages citizens not to mourn, but to
ensure the memory of the soldiers is not forgotten. Calgarians and Victorians also were consoled
by being able to directly contribute to the memorials. Finally, these Cenotaphs contribute to
nationalism by enshrining the narrative that Canada ‘came of age’ in the First World War
through its military victories, which ultimately attempted to create a greater sense of belonging
and patriotism. The Calgary and Victoria Cenotaphs not only serve as memorials to the brave
Canadians who fought in the war, they also serve as excellent sources of information about the
understandings of the Great War that were widely held by Canadians in the post-war era
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Justification for the War
Providing a justification for the war was necessary in the post-war period due to the
impact the war had on the entire Canadian society, both the soldiers that served at the front and
the citizens at home.96 Citizens needed to understand why and how this had happened to them
and war memorials attempted to provide answers to a key question asked by these citizens: what
did these soldiers die for?97 While each memorial provides slightly different answers in different
ways, the explanation they usually give is that the First World War was inherently a just war,
fought for Canada and humanity.
The just war myth emerged out of the confusion and shock felt all around the globe, as
people tried to come to terms with what they had just experienced. Historians have found that
the complex nature of the underlying causes of the conflict meant that citizens and soldiers on all
sides of the war believed themselves to be defending their nation against a malevolent enemy,
working to protect the peace of the world.98 It can also be argued that in the chaos of the post-
war years, when it became clear that the war had done little to change life at home for most
Canadians, nostalgia may have started to play a role in the minds of Canadian veterans and
citizens when looking back at the war years.99 This is evident in the number of light-hearted
books that were published in the years after the war, which vastly outnumbered the books
depicting the horrors of the war.100 The vast majority of this post-war literature captured the
spirit of the age, with tales of chivalry, honour, heroism, and bravery in defence of Canadian
96 Hunt, Memory, War and Trauma, 180. 97 Macleod, Remembered in Bronze and Stone, 179. 98 Ian McKay and Jamie Swift, The Vimy Trap: Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War
(Toronto: Between the Lines, 2016), 18. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid., 76-77.
27
freedom and values.101 In this narrative, there was little room to remember the war as the mass
slaughter of mechanized warfare.102 When Canadians “remember” the First World War, in many
ways what we are remembering is not so much the actual conflict in Europe, but an imagined
“Great War,” one in which gallant soldiers performed great deeds for a noble cause.103 The
Empire’s soldiers are depicted as struggling against a despotic enemy, and those who sacrificed
their lives on Flanders Fields have become foundational for Canadians.104 As a result, the
explanations and justifications for the war that were common in the post-war years, specifically
one of a moral war fought for intrinsic Canadian and Western values, are enshrined in these
memorials and Canadian history. 105 These types of declarations about the justness of the cause,
and why the soldiers died, are common on war memorials, specifically because they serve to
provide an explanation of and justification for the war. 106 In the end, these memorials
rationalize the suffering in a way that makes it seem worthwhile and meaningful to the people
they represent.
Through the just war narrative, war memorials attempt to provide justification for the war
by explaining it as a war in defence of Western values and Christianity against German
militarism. This narrative claims that the Great War was a fight of good against evil, justice
against tyranny, and kindness against cruelty.107 Germans were depicted throughout the war as
the barbaric “Hun,” threatening the peace and liberty of the entire world with its deplorable
militarism, despotism, and general uncivilized nature.108 Therefore, in many cases, the war was
101 Ian McKay and Jamie Swift, Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety (Toronto: Between the
Lines, 2012), 101-102. 102 McKay and Swift, Warrior Nation, 102 103 Ibid. 104 Ibid., 100. 105 Ibid., 106. 106 McIntyre, Monuments of War, 101. 107 Vance, Death So Noble, 16-17. 108 McKay and Swift, Warrior Nation, 100; Vance, Death So Noble, 12.
28
considered to be a crusade for the protection of democracy and humanity, with military
intervention as the only way of achieving lasting peace – it was “the war to end all wars.”109
This explanation and justification of the war carried well into the post-war period as Germany
was vilified after the war as well, carrying the sole blame for causing the war and destroying
France and Belgium.110 Stories such as the Crucified Canadian, a rumour that German troops
had captured and “crucified” a Canadian soldier using their bayonets, allowing him to die slowly,
flourished as examples of supposed German vileness, despite the fact that the story was proved
to be false.111 As a result, the notion that Canada fought in the war in defence of Western values
and peace became enshrined in memorial practices and historical narratives through the use of
language describing the soldiers who “gave their lives for liberty.”112 This is symbolized in
carved depictions of fasces on the benches flanking the Cenotaph. Fasces are bundles of rods
tied together, sometimes around an axe, meant to be a Roman symbol of executive or legal
power.113 In the case of the Calgary Cenotaph the fasces do not have an axe, which means they
symbolize democratic power because the weapon for the ruler to execute or punish his subjects is
absent.114 Therefore, Canada is depicted as a righteous liberal democracy, fighting for liberty
and freedom against a German tyrant.
The historical narrative that emerged out of the First World War not only depicted
Canadians as fighting for Western democratic values, but also for Christianity. The Allied
soldiers were depicted as God’s warriors against the “Eastern pagans.”115 For example, some
109 Vance, Death So Noble, 12; McKay and Swift, Vimy Trap, 100. 110 Vance, Death So Noble, 23. 111 Vance, Death So Noble, 122; Shipley, To Mark Our Place, 150. 112 McKay and Swift, Vimy Trap, 5-6. 113 Anthony J. Marshall, “Symbols and Showmanship in Roman Public Life: The Fasces,” Phoenix 32, no. 2 (1984):
120-141, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/stable/1088896. 114 Marshall, “Symbols and Showmanship in Roman Public Life,” 135-136. 115 Vance, Death So Noble, 35.
29
priests preached in their masses that while a war between civilized nations is wicked and
immoral according to the bible, such principles did not apply to the war against Germany since it
was an uncivilized nation.116 This historical narrative of Canadian soldiers fighting for Western
values and Christianity is evident in the inscription on the Victoria Cenotaph which claimed that
Canadian soldiers “DIED THE NOBLEST DEATH A MAN MAY DIE, FIGHTING FOR GOD
AND RIGHT AND LIBERTY.” The notion of a just war is also evident in the language of
commemoration surrounding the First World War. For example, it became known across the
country, and across the Western world, as the “Great” War, not the “World War” or even the
“European War,” inherently implying importance and “great”ness.117 Heroism is also
represented in how the Victoria Cenotaph refers to Canadian soldiers who died on the front as
“OUR GLORIOUS DEAD.”118 As well, one of the benches flanking the Calgary Cenotaph also
conveys the message of the soldiers as heroes and the war as an honourable cause with an
inscription that reads: “MAY WE LIVE AS NOBLY AS THEY DIED”. This emphasis on the
bravery and greatness of Canadians was a result of realizing what the consequences might have
been if the Allies had lost to Germany. It was a commonly held belief, and fear, that if Britain
fell, Canada would be next.119 Canada’s historical narrative of the conflict had little room in the
historical narrative for the costs of war, because the war was seen as a necessary evil to protect
Canada and the civilized world from German aggression.120 Therefore, the Calgary and Victoria
Cenotaphs are representative of the popular attitudes of the time in which they were built.
116 Vance, Death So Noble, 22. 117 McIntyre, Monuments of War, 105. 118 David W. Lloyd, Battlefield Tourism: Pilgrimage and the Commemoration of the Great War in Britain, Australia
and Canada, 1919-1939 (Oxford: Berg, 1998), 89. 119 Ibid., 20. 120 Ibid.
30
Consolation of Citizens
The horror and confusion of the First World War experienced across the globe meant that
Canadians living in the post-war era, many of whom had lost loved ones or served on the front,
needed consolation. The role of modern monuments or war memorials is to “consolidate and
express the national trauma at the same time that it permits and provides for private
contemplation and grief.” 121 They are meant to serve as a sacred place to honour and mourn the
dead, while also symbolizing the grief and trauma of an entire nation. Canadian memorials
became especially important in the years following the war as a way to stem the feelings of guilt
of the men who returned home without their comrades.122 Many veterans suffered from
psychological trauma, with close to 10% of returned soldiers treated for “shell-shock,” though it
is likely that many more were suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of their experience
in the trenches.123 The grief of the nation continued to grow as the narrative and collective
memory surrounding the Great War began to merge into a national myth of sacrifice, heroism,
and bravery.124 Out of this myth emerged the great importance to preserve the sacredness and
memory of the sacrifice.125 This myth became so important to Canadian historical
understandings of the war that, according to Vance, “No truth was so important to discover, no
fiction so important to puncture, that it could justify calling into question the sacrifices of the
dead. In this regard, we must take care not to underestimate the profound grief occasioned by
the war.”126 The Calgary and Victoria Cenotaphs provided consolation through religious
121 Mark A. R. Facknitz, “Kitsch, Commemoration, and Mourning in the Aftermath of the Great War,” in The Great
War: From Memory to History, ed. Kellen Kurschinski, Steve Marti, Alicia Robinet, Matt Symes, and Jonathan
Vance (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2015), 362. 122 McIntyre, Monuments of War, 19. 123 Lloyd, Battlefield Tourism, 51; Bowker, A Time Such as There Never Was Before, 69. 124 McKay and Swift, Vimy Trap, 135. 125 Ibid. 126 Vance, Death So Noble, 266.
31
symbolism, language of remembrance, and through allowing citizens to take part in the building
of the Cenotaphs. Religious symbolism in memorials conveys the notion that soldiers suffered
alongside Jesus. Through memorials fulfilling the need to console citizens, they both represent
and give shape to the collective memories of the people who built them.
Cenotaphs, and war memorials in general, provide consolation for civilians and veterans
alike through their religious symbolism which establishes itself as a sacred monument associated
with the spirits of the fallen and equates the suffering and death of soldiers with that of Jesus
Christ. It is through this symbolism that war memorials convey a specific narrative of the First
World War as a crusade for Christian values, fought by Canadians who made the ultimate
sacrifice for their country. Religious symbolism was inherently consolatory in the post-war
years because Christianity and Christian values were at the foundation of the lives of many
Canadians.127 Protestants made up the majority population in both Calgary and Victoria in the
1920s.128 The dominance of Christianity in Canada is also evident in the fact that 33.7% of
soldiers in the CEF were members of the Church of England, 25.4% were Presbyterian, 14.7%
were Roman Catholic, and 12.5% Methodist.129 Only 0.3% of the troops were Jewish and 5.3%
were deemed “other.”130 So Christian religious imagery and language would have been a
popular form of consolation.
However, the immense suffering and death of the First World War began to shake these
Christian foundations, as people began to question how God could subject them to the horror of
127 Bowker, A Time Such as There Never Was Before, 118. 128 Sixth Census of Canada, 1921, 754-755; Smith, Calgary’s Grand Story, 16. 129 “Soldiers By Religion,” Canadian Great War Project,
http://www.canadiangreatwarproject.com/Stats/statReligion.asp?selType=0 (accessed 20 February 2018). 130 “Soldiers By Religion,” Canadian Great War Project.
32
mechanized trench warfare.131 The response of the church was to associate the plight and
suffering of the soldiers with the suffering of Jesus on the cross.132 The fallen soldiers were
portrayed as knowingly sacrificing their lives on the European front in order to save the souls of
the Canadian nation, just as Jesus had to save the souls of mankind, giving them eternal life.133
These narratives of supreme sacrifice in the image of Jesus were evident throughout the war,
with priests and church-goers alike referring to the men fighting as “the lamb of God.”134
The religious symbolism of the Great War also continued into the post-war years.
Language surrounding memorialization frequently included notions of sacrifice in the name of
Christianity.135 For example, the plaque on the Victoria Cenotaph states that the soldiers died
nobly “FIGHTING FOR GOD… AND SUCH A DEATH IS IMMORTALITY”. This is also
illustrated in a speech given by the Chancellor of Victoria University in Toronto in 1919 on the
war effort, during which he stated that “all fine and good things which lie in the heart of
Christianity were at stake,” expressing a general consensus that the men on the front suffering
alongside Christ was central to Canadian collective memory of the Great War.136 This religious
narrative of sacrifice was important because it provided both an explanation and consolation for
families of soldiers who died and the veterans who served on the front through establishing a
meaning and purpose for the war and their death – to fight for Christianity and save the souls of
Canadians.137 As well, the families of the soldiers who died can be consoled in knowing that in
sacrificing their lives, they earned eternal life just as Jesus had. This religious symbolism, and
131 J. Guy Lalande, “On Suffering and Consolation in Times of War,” Social History 47, no. 95 (2014): 798,
https://doi.org/10.1353/his.2014.0056. 132 Lalande, “On Suffering and Consolation in Times of War,” 798. 133 Lalande, “On Suffering and Consolation in Times of War,” 798; McIntyre, Monuments of War, 51. 134 Vance, Death So Noble, 40. 135 McIntyre, Monuments of War, 111. 136 Ibid., 37. 137 Ibid., 36, 73.
33
the notion of memorials as a sacred place, is evident in the unveiling ceremonies of the Victoria
and Calgary Cenotaphs. The Daily Colonist reported at the time that “the ceremony in
connection with the unveiling of the War Memorial on Parliament Buildings Square is religious
and consecratory, and it is a happy thought that Sunday should be chosen for the event.”138
Similarly, the Calgary Herald reported that the “service will be [in] a joint religious, military and
civil character”.139 Therefore, the religious symbolism enshrined in these memorials ultimately
contributed to the historical narrative of the Great War as a crusade for Christian values and
consoled citizens by giving meaning to the suffering and sacrifices of the soldiers who died in
the war.
The spiritual symbolism of cenotaph memorials themselves also served a consolatory role
in the post-war era due to their role as symbolic tombs for the soldiers who died in Europe.140
Cenotaphs are sacred places for commemoration practices because they illustrate the “human
cost of war and the pain people felt at that cost,” therefore, they served as memorials to both the
souls and memories of the fallen soldiers.141 This symbolism of a cenotaph was especially
important since the Imperial War Graves Commission did not patriate any bodies of the soldiers
who died abroad and, therefore, Canadians who could not afford to travel to the grave sites or
battlefields in Europe could use the cenotaph as a site of personal grief just as a grave would.
Canadian war memorials claim that we should not feel sad for the fallen soldiers, for they
gave their lives for us as a sacrifice, and we can only fulfill our debt to them by remembering
their sacrifice.142 The notions of remembrance and commemoration surrounding war memorials
138 Daily Colonist, “Unveiling Ceremony,” 11 July 1925. 139 “Memorial Park Cenotaph Dedication,” Calgary Herald, 10 November 1928. 140 Lloyd, Battlefield Tourism, 50. 141 Ibid., 90. 142 Vance, Death So Noble, 76-77.
34
encouraged Canadians not to grieve for the fallen, but to honour them by preserving their
memory. For example, the armistice at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918
brought about a tradition of holding two minutes of silence to commemorate the lives of the
fallen Canadian soldiers.143 As a result, memorials tend to focus on the duty of citizens to
remember.144 This is evident in an inscription on the side of the Calgary Cenotaph which reads
“THEY SHALL NOT DIE WHILE MEMORY FULFILLS ITS TASK OF GRATITUDE.” The
Calgary Cenotaph Committee also declared that the memorial would serve as “a perpetual
reminder to present and future generations of what they owe to those who died for their
country”.145 In Victoria, the Cenotaph was “to be Victoria’s perpetual monument or shrine to the
memory of the dead who fell in the greatest of wars.”146 The most important role that these
memorials played in Canadian society was ensuring that the lives and sacrifices of these soldiers
would always be remembered. This remembrance would provide consolation to those grieving
the loss of the loved ones, the guilt of survivors, and the trauma of the nation by telling them that
their sacrifice could be worth it as long as their memory remained enshrined in history through
these Cenotaphs. This would give meaning to their death because they would be remembered by
each following generation who would be able to learn for what these soldiers sacrificed
themselves. Therefore, the narrative represented by these memorials may not be completely
reflective of the experiences of Canadians in the Great War, but it is reflective of a society
attempting to move on after four years of total war.
143 McIntyre, Monuments of War, 203. 144 Ibid., 75. 145 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1189, Written Correspondence of the Calgary
Cenotaph Committee from the Chairman, 5 March 1928. 146 Daily Colonist, “Unveiling Ceremony.”
35
Finally, citizens are also able to be consoled through taking part in building a cenotaph in
their communities to commemorate their fellow citizens who fought and lost their lives in the
Great War. The majority of war memorials built in the 1920s were erected not by governments,
but rather by local citizens through local fundraising.147 Citizens were consoled by donating to
their local war memorial fund, or by actively taking part in the planning because it gave them an
outlet for their grief and guilt. This is because studies have shown that psychological benefit is a
key influence in encouraging people to take part in philanthropy or give charitable donations. 148
As well, people are more likely to contribute if they recognize there is an inherent need in society
that must be fulfilled, if they believe it will make the world a better place, or if there are religious
undertones which foster a sense of moral obligation. 149 In the case of the Cenotaphs in Calgary
and Victoria, contributing to these memorials provides consolation in allowing people to make
donations in honour of their loved ones.
Taking part in commemorative practices as a means of consolation was evident in both
Calgary and Victoria. This is because many people in the post-war era had a personal stake in
the commemoration of the soldiers and the construction of memorials because they had lost a
loved one.150 Pemberton and his wife lost two sons in the Great War and the War Memorial
Committee was comprised of many Victorians who also suffered personal losses, such as
Beaumont Boggs whose son, Herbert, was the first Canadian officer to be killed overseas in the
147 McIntyre, Monuments of War, 11. 148 Rene Beckers and Pamala Wiepking, “A Literature Review of Empirical Studies of Philanthropy: Eight
Mechanisms That Drive Charitable Giving,” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 40, no. 5 (2011): 927,
https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1177/0899764010380927. 149 Beckers and Wiepking, “A Literature Review of Empirical Studies of Philanthropy,” 941; Shirley Tillotson,
Contributing Citizens: Modern Charitable Fundraising and the Making of the Welfare State, 1920-66 (Vancouver:
UBC Press, 2008), 53. 150 Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 86.
36
Great War.151 The role that commemoration played in consoling citizens is also seen in the
amount of financial support the Victoria Cenotaph received. The fundraising campaign for the
Victoria Cenotaph, which began on 25 September 1924 and ran until 15 November, received a
vast amount of support from the community. The ledger book of the War Memorial Committee
shows individual donations that ranged from 50 cents to 100 dollars.152 Fundraisers were held in
schools and churches, co-workers banded together to raise money, and a charity ball held by the
Victoria Union Club raised $771.153 All levels of Victorian society contributed to the cause,
including the Lieutenant Governor, W.C. Nichol, who contributed $5000 to kick off the
campaign, and then an additional $500 at the end.154 Another notable donor was Arthur Currie,
who sent in a cheque of $35 dollars all the way from Montreal.155 The Manager of the Hudson’s
Bay Company in downtown Victoria wrote a letter enclosing $111.25 raised by his employees,
as well as his personal donation of $100.156 Numerous letters were written to the committee
donating in honour of loved ones, and wishing they could give more. One letter dated 17
November 1924, reads “Enclosed please ten dollars for war memorial [sic] in memory of Henry
J. Dunn.”157 Another undated and unsigned letter reads “I am very pleased to make a small
contribution, regretting that I cannot afford to send more.”158 At the end of the fundraising
campaign, the War Memorial Committee had managed to raise over $12 500. However, by
151 VMA, Monuments- Cenotaphs File, Islander Newspaper Article titled “Thank Pemberton for Cenotaph”, 11
February 1990. 152 Vance, Death So Noble, 161-162. 153 BCA, Associations, community service, charities, Pemberton Holmes Ltd., MS-3001, Box 48, File 13, Ledger
Book, September to December 1924; Shipley, To Mark Our Place, 74. 154 Ibid. 155 VMA, Monuments- Cenotaphs File, Islander Newspaper Article titled “Thank Pemberton for Cenotaph”, 11
February 1990. 156 BCA, Associations, community service, charities, Pemberton Holmes Ltd., MS-3001, Box 48, File 13, Letter
from Manager of Hudson’ 157 BCA, Associations, community service, charities, Pemberton Holmes Ltd., MS-3001, Box 48, File 13, Letter to
War Memorial Committee from Mrs. Dunn, 17 November 1924. 158 BCA, Associations, community service, charities, Pemberton Holmes Ltd., MS-3001, Box 48, File 13, Letter to
War Memorial Committee.
37
April, that number had jumped to over $15 000 when the BC Chamber of Commerce agreed to
donate $2500 to the cause.159 The immense generosity of Victorians is evident. In the early to
mid-1920s, a good monthly wage was $125, the average rent was $25 a month, and a woman’s
sweater “of fine quality” sold for $1.73 at the Hudson’s Bay.160 Many Victorians gave quite
generously and above their means.
There was also immense support for the fundraising and building of the Cenotaph in
Calgary, with $17 359 raised by March 1928. The Cenotaph Committee released a statement
expressing their surprise and profound gratitude at the generosity of Calgarians towards their
cause:
Possibly never before in the history of Calgary, has there been such a genuine and
heart-felt response from all classes of the people to a special appeal, as that given
towards the erection of the Cenotaph to commemorate those who abandoned all for
their country in the great war [sic]. While the utmost thanks are due to each and
every subscriber, from the little boy or girl who brought their mite, “in memory of
daddy,” to those who were able and willing to give larger amounts…161
The Calgary Cenotaph Committee also illustrates the direct role that citizens were able to play in
building the memorial. It was composed of Calgarians from all walks of life, including bankers,
Schoolboard members, bureaucrats from city hall, city clerks, the Editor of the Calgary Herald,
the Lieutenant Governor William Egbert, and members of various public service, community
service and patriotic organizations, as well as regular citizens.162 Therefore, it was truly a
community effort that transcended economic and political boundaries and in which many
Calgarians were eager to participate. While a number of Calgarians wrote to the Committee
159 VMA, Monuments- Cenotaphs File, Islander Newspaper Article titled “Thank Pemberton for Cenotaph”, 11
February 1990. 160 Ibid. 161 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1189, Written Correspondence of the Calgary
Cenotaph Committee from the Chairman, 5 March 1928. 162 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1189, Written Correspondence of the Calgary
Cenotaph Committee from the Chairman, 18 February 1928.
38
expressing their excitement and opinions about what the memorial should look like and where it
should reside, there was almost no clear opposition to the erection of a war memorial. However,
one concerned citizen wrote in to express her worry that the choice of location in Central Park
would create “terrible automobile traffic” and that the park would not be big enough for
Armistice Day ceremonies around the Cenotaph.163 It was clear that the Cenotaph Committee
was eager to get started on the memorial, as they wrote letters to many cities across Canada
asking if and how they had built their own war memorials, sometimes writing these cities several
times.164 Excitement and pride was felt by all Calgarians that they would finally have a
memorial to honour their fallen soldiers. The Herald wrote that the unveiling ceremony on 11
November was sure to draw “one of the greatest crowds in the history of the city,” and that “in
the spring the parks department will lay out a flower bed arrangement which will transform the
park into one of the beauty spots of Western Canada.”165 The City of Calgary Parks Department
Annual Report 1928 also depicted the excitement felt by Calgarians in helping to erect the city’s
Cenotaph. The report states:
One of the outstanding events of the year was the erection and unveiling of the
Cenotaph placed in this park to memorialize those of our citizens who made the
supreme sacrifice in the Great War. Much work devolved on the Department in
preparing the site for its erection, also in preparation for the unveiling ceremony
which took place on November 11, (Armistice Day) before a concourse of some 10
000 people.166
163 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1189, unsigned letter to Mayor Osbourne, 6
June 1927. 164 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1189, Letters from City of Toronto, Regina
and Victoria, to Calgary Cenotaph Committee, 1927. 165 The Herald, “Memorial Park Cenotaph Dedication,” 1928. 166 City of Calgary Parks Department Annual Report 1928 (The City of Calgary, Corporate Records Archives Parks
and Recreation Department fonds), 144, http://www.calgary.ca/CA/city-clerks/Documents/Corporate-
records/Archives/Parks-Department-Annual-Reports/Annual-Report-1928.pdf.
39
The enthusiasm and generosity of Calgarians in the erection of their war memorial illustrates
how being able to donate and get involved in the process of building the memorial was a form of
consolation.
Through religious symbolism, remembrance, and the involvement of citizens, memorials
served as a catharsis for the grief of citizens. The Cenotaphs in Victoria and Calgary became a
sacred space for both public and private grief, helped to forgive the guilt of surviving veterans
and citizens, and created an enduring physical reminder of those who lost their lives in the Great
War.167 In this sense, these war memorials reflect the attitudes and preoccupations of the people
that built them. The Cenotaphs represent the historical narratives and collective memories of
Victorians and Calgarians in the post-war years in their depiction of the war as a fight for
Christian values and the soldiers as sacred warriors who sacrificed their lives for Canada. They
also depict a collective desire to commemorate their sacrifices and to preserve the memory of the
fallen soldiers for generations to come.
Contributions to Canadian Nationalism
The Cenotaphs in Victoria and Calgary ultimately contributed to nationalism through
fostering patriotism and a sense of belonging to a unified Canadian nation. According to
Benedict Anderson, “No more arresting emblems of the modern culture of nationalism exist than
cenotaphs and tombs of Unknown Soldiers…yet void as these tombs are of identifiable mortal
remains or immortal souls, they are nonetheless saturated with ghostly national imaginings.”168
In the study of nationalism, theorists make a distinction between nationalism and patriotism.
167 McIntyre, Monuments of War, 20. 168 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London:
Verso, 2016), 9.
40
Nationalism, according to Benedict Anderson, is a sense of belonging that unites an entire
population in the common bonds of an “imagined political community.”169 This feeling of
belonging to an imagined national community is different than patriotism which, according to
Hans Kohn, is the pride in and love of one’s homeland.170 Both the cultivation of a common
sense of belonging and patriotism contributed to the development of Canadian nationalism and
are evident in the Cenotaphs in Calgary and Victoria. Cenotaphs and other war memorials are
inherently nationalistic because they utilize patriotic symbols of victory and heroism while also
constructing a founding national narrative which attempts to unify Canada.
The Great War provided an opportunity to create a national consciousness that would
unite a deeply divided nation under a single Canadian identity with a single collective national
history. Ernest Gellner argues that “nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-
consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist.”171 Canada in the years following the
war was no more united than it was before, with deeply entrenched cultural, linguistic, and
regional differences between East and West, Francophone and Anglophone, First-Nations and
settlers. In many cases, the war had exacerbated these tensions as Aboriginal men who fought in
the war continued to be denied basic citizenship rights, Western farmers felt exploited by the war
effort, and Quebecois felt betrayed by the implementation of conscription.172 The First World
War provided an opportunity to finally unite this deeply divided nation.
The historical narrative of the war which helped to construct Canadian nationalism and
unify Canadians was a coming-of-age story for the young nation.173 This nation-building
169 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 6. 170 Hans Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in its Origins and Background (New York: Macmillan, 1944), 5-6. 171 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 6 172 McKay and Swift, Warrior Nation, 32; McKay and Swift, Vimy Trap, 2. 173 Vance, Death So Noble, 10.
41
narrative claims that Canadian nationalism emerged through the creation of the Canadian
Expeditionary Force, its steady accomplishments in the front, and finally its first battle fighting
together as one nation at Vimy in April 1917 which resulted in a great Allied victory and
ultimately fostered national pride and unity.174 In the post-war years, Vimy is regarded as a
turning point in both the war effort and Canadian national history. A.E. Ross, a Canadian
Brigadier-General who fought in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, claimed “in those few minutes I
witnessed the birth of a nation.”175 And this narrative began to take hold since by the mid-1920s,
the imagery and rhetoric of nationalism began to replace the religious symbolism that
characterized the collective memory of the Great War.176 This historical narrative continues to
exist today. For example, on 10 June 2016, Justin Trudeau claimed that “the reason the world
pays heed to Canada is because we fought like lions in the trenches of World War I, on the
beaches of World War II, and in theatres and conflicts scattered around the globe.” 177 As well,
during the 100th anniversary celebrations for the Battle of Vimy Ridge, the BC Legislature
released a pamphlet on the history of Vimy, which states that “the great achievements of
Canadian soldiers at Vimy Ridge fostered a sense of national pride and confidence that Canada
could stand on its own, at home and around the world.”178 This historical narrative of a distinctly
Canadian nation which emerged out of the conflict is depicted in these memorials. For example,
the Daily Colonist wrote an article on the Victoria Cenotaph titled “Canada on Guard,”
explaining that the memorial was a tribute to the Canadians at the Second Battle of Ypres who
“held on and saved the situation” for the Allies and to Canada’s “greatest and best who made the
174 “The Legislative Assembly Remembers the First World War: 1914-1918,” The Legislative Assembly, Province
of British Columbia; McKay and Swift, Warrior Nation, 32. 175 McKay and Swift, Vimy Trap, 2. 176 Ibid., 12. 177 Ibid., 1. 178 “The Legislative Assembly Remembers the First World War: 1914-1918,” The Legislative Assembly, Province
of British Columbia.
42
supreme sacrifice for Canada.” As well, the Calgary Cenotaph Committee claimed that the
memorial served as a lesson on what it meant to be Canadian, and that these soldiers who gave
their lives challenged us to “take up the torch fallen from their hands and carry it forwards to a
higher type of Canadian citizenship.”179 These memorials attempted to enshrine a distinctly
Canadian identity of the soldiers that emerged out of the battle and transcended into Canadian
society.
However, national identity is not static, but constantly evolving to respond to new
experiences, interests, and needs that could bring about national unity.180 These memorials have
adapted over the years to fit these changing understandings, and therefore continue to play a role
in constructing a unifying narrative of Canadian citizenship. Both Cenotaphs have been altered
to include more recent wars in the national narrative, such as World War II, the Korean War, and
the Afghan War. An additional plaque on the back of the Victoria Cenotaph has also been added
in order to accommodate new understandings of Canadians as peacekeepers. It reads:
IN RECOGNITION OF THE
SACRIFICES OF THE
CANADIAN FORCES AND
CANADIAN CITIZENS
IN THE SERVICE OF PEACE
179 CCRA, City Clerk’s Department Fonds, G81-2A, Box 175, Folder 1189, Written Correspondence of the Calgary
Cenotaph Committee from the Chairman, 5 March 1928. 180 Karen D. Shelby, Flemish Nationalism and the Great War: The Politics of Memory, Visual Culture and
Commemoration (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 9.
43
The Cenotaphs also contributed to Canadian nationalism through the construction of a
narrative of the war of which Canada could be proud. This is enshrined in the Victoria and
Calgary Cenotaphs through the patriotic symbols of heroism and the allusions to military victory.
While both Cenotaphs are meant to be memorials to honour the dead, they ultimately convey that
Canada emerged from the war as a victor. This symbolism is seen in the carvings of laurel
wreaths on the Calgary Cenotaph:
Figure 1. 3: The Victoria Cenotaph Rear Plaque, Rebecca Powell, January 2018.
44
As well as a bronze laurel wreath on the Victoria Cenotaph:
Laurel wreaths symbolize honour and victory, and were often given to Ancient Roman athletes
or military generals; therefore, they are often depicted in war memorials or monuments meant to
commemorate heroes or victorious battles.181 As well, there is a direct call to patriotism in the
181 Shelby, Flemish Nationalism and the Great War, 162; Shipley, To Mark Our Place, 148.
Figure 2. 6: The Calgary Cenotaph - Laurel Wreath, Rebecca Powell, September 2017.
Figure 1. 4: The Victoria Cenotaph - Laurel Wreath, Rebecca Powell, January 2018.
45
benches flanking the Cenotaph in Calgary with its inscription that reads “PASS NOT IN
SORROW BUT WITH PRIDE.”
The soldier statue on the Victoria Cenotaph also depicts a patriotic interpretation of
Canada’s involvement in the war. Soldiers that are depicted in mourning are typically standing,
sometimes with their heads bowed, and with their rifles resting on their boot.182 The Victoria
Cenotaph’s soldier statue instead depicts a soldier in battle, slightly crouching down with his
rifle at the ready. In letters written to Pemberton, designer Sidney March stated that “the attitude
of the soldier is one of engaging the enemy in a bayonet fight.”183 At the time it was being
unveiled in 1925, the Daily Colonist reported that the statue depicts a Canadian soldier fighting
in the Second Battle of Ypres, during which the Allies were hit with poisonous gas, forcing them
to fall back to Canadian lines.184 The message that is transmitted through these memorials is not
one of solely grief, but also the idea that Canadian soldiers achieved great success, which is
ultimately a cause for pride.
This depiction of the heroic Canadian soldier who laid down his life in the fight for his
nation is representative of the pride most Canadians felt for the men who fought with the CEF.
Arthur Currie described the Canadian soldier as “vigorous, clean-minded, good-humoured,
unselfish, intelligent and thorough.”185 Even though 70% of the First Contingent of the CEF was
comprised of British-born Canadians, and less than half of the total forces that served were
actually born in Canada, these soldiers depicted and commemorated by these war memorials
were conceived as being distinctly Canadian.186 This nationalist narrative of the First World War
182 McIntyre, Monuments of War, 199. 183 VMA, Monuments- Cenotaphs File, Islander Newspaper Article titled “Thank Pemberton for Cenotaph”, 11
February 1990. 184 Daily Colonist, 12 July 1925, p. 4, “Canada on Guard” 185 Vance, Death So Noble, 146. 186 Vance, Death So Noble, 161-162.
46
ultimately creates a sense of purpose and meaning for the human cost of war, while also giving a
sense of purpose to the Canadian nation in the future.187 Creating a founding myth out of the
collective memory of the war serves as a way to unite an increasingly diverse Canadian nation,
while also making the sacrifice of the soldiers appear worthwhile, establishing an understanding
of Canada and the war which is transmitted into the future through these memorials.
Conclusion
In providing justification for the war, consolation for citizens, and evoking nationalist
sentiments, the Calgary and Victoria Cenotaphs provide certain historical narratives about the
First World War that are representative of the collective memory that emerged in the post-war
period. The explanation of the Great War as a just war is reflective of the desire of many
Canadians to understand what these soldiers had died for. The symbolism and language of the
war fought in the name of God, freedom, liberty, and democracy, against a despotic and
tyrannical Germany is reflective of the understanding of the war that was popular in the 1920s.
As well, the religious symbolism of the plight of soldiers being comparable to Jesus Christ shows
how Canada was still a deeply Christian society that was consoled by religion that gave meaning
to the suffering and sacrifice of Canadian soldiers. The language of remembrance and the
incorporation of citizens into the fundraising and building of the memorials shows how
important creating a memorial to permanently enshrine the memory of these heroes was to
Calgarians and Victorians. Finally, the nationalistic symbolism of victory and heroism illustrate
the nation-building myth that emerged out of the First World War that depicted Canada as
coming of age through military engagement. Therefore, these memorials are useful to study
187 Brad West, Re-Enchanting Nationalisms: Rituals and Remembrances in a Postmodern Age (New York: Springer
New York, 2015) 141.
47
because they construct certain historical narratives about Canada’s involvement in military
conflict and which are reflective of the preoccupations and collective memories that emerged in
the post-war era.
48
Concluding Remarks: Remembering and Forgetting
The historical narratives enshrined by the Calgary and Victoria Cenotaphs depict the First
World War as a honourable war, fought in defence of peace, democracy, and freedom, a
Christian crusade fought by soldiers who sacrificed their lives and were in turn granted eternal
life, and a battle for Canada, out of which the Canadian nation finally emerged.
However, it must be recognized that these historical narratives are just that – a narrative,
a collective memory, a national myth. This understanding of the war inherently involves both
remembering and forgetting, as well as exclusion and inclusion.188 While these memorials
remember Canadian soldiers as heroic and brave, fighting in the name of Canada and the
intrinsic values of democracy and freedom, they also require us to forget that much of this war
was a technological endeavour of machines, guns, tanks, and weapons, resulting in mass
destruction of death around the world. 189 It also excludes some of the criticism of the war: the
brutality of having to kill the enemy, the terrible conditions, and the idea that it was a war fought
amongst Empires in search of greater spheres of influence, not democracy or peace or
freedom.190 The myth necessarily involves excluding certain parts of Canadian society,
particularly dissenters of the war effort, including Quebecois, First Nations, pacifists, and even
farmers in Alberta, many of whom were either opposed to conscription or to the war in
general.191 This narrative of the war is so exclusive because it was inherently assimilationist,
based on British beliefs and values, supporting a war fought in the name of Britain, and it was a
188 McKay and Swift, The Vimy Trap, 4. 189 Vance, Death So Noble, 260. 190 McKay and Swift, The Vimy Trap, 38; McKay and Swift, Warrior Nation, 100. 191 McKay and Swift, The Vimy Trap, 138.
49
myth that asked every citizen to embrace it in order for Canada to reinvent its own identity.192
However, the biggest problem with this idea of a single collective myth is that most importantly,
many veterans who fought in the Great War did not ascribe to it.193 Therefore, it must be
recognized that this collective memory may not have been so collective after all.
Indeed, there was not resounding support across the country for the erection of memorials
themselves, despite what these historical narratives claim. In April 1924 after the unveiling of
the cenotaph in Vancouver, veterans groups in Vancouver began to claim that they did not want
war memorials at all because they did not need the daily reminder of their experiences on the
front, or the men they left behind.194 Throughout the post-war period, members of the House of
Commons began to point out that perhaps the money being spent on war memorials should
instead be given directly to the veterans themselves, arguing that there was no practical purpose
in “spending money on the dead who do not want it, rather than on the living who need it.”195
However, perhaps the power of this myth is that in spite of the resistance from different
areas of society, the myth prevailed and is still prevalent in Canadian society today. Many
memorials were raised by communities across Canada in the inter-war period,196 and the
practices of memorialization that emerged after the First World War have continued on through
each generation. The myth carries on and the historical narrative continues through
Remembrance Day, where the memory of soldiers is commemorated, their sacrifices honoured,
and their deaths grieved.197 These historical narratives continue to matter even though there is no
192 Vance, Death So Noble, 260. 193 McKay and Swift, The Vimy Trap, 138. 194 Ibid., 95. 195 Ibid. 196 Ibid., 135. 197 Ibid.
50
one left living to tell their story. Memorials make sure people still care and that Canadians still
remember the Great War, because they give the war meaning. As argued by Vance:
People like this embraced the myth, not because their social betters drilled it into
their minds by sheer repetition, but because it answered a need, explained the past, or
offered the promise of a better future. But they did more than simply embrace the
myth: they helped to create it. By their very actions, each of these people played a
role in nurturing the nation’s memory of the war and giving it life within their
consciousness as Canadians. That memory was not conferred on them from above; it
sprouted from the grief, the hope, and the search for meaning of a thousand Canadian
communities.198
War memorials, collective memory, and public history of the First World War reinforce
and shape each other, evolving certain historical narratives while perpetuating others into
the future. As long as war memorials continue to give meaning to the war, to give a
justification for why it happened, console citizens for the suffering that was once endured,
and express sentiments of Canadian unity and nationalism, the historical narratives they
enshrine will continue to exist and be passed on from generation to generation.
198 Vance, Death So Noble, 267.
51
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